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BASKETBALL: Horstman powers New Knoxville past Tigers

NEW KNOXVILLE — Behind the 26 points from Haley Horstman the New Knoxville Rangers girl’s basketball team was able to pull away from the Waynesfield-Goshen Tigers for a 61-53 victory Saturday afternoon at New Knoxville.

“New Knoxville has a very good team,” Tigers varsity coach Ted Patton said. “Our kids played hard and didn’t quit and I am very happy with that.”

It was back and forth the entire first quarter as every time a team would score a basket the other team would answer. Paige Lehman hit a pair of free throws with 22 seconds left, but Kaylee Patton nailed a bomb with four seconds left in the quarter to give Waynesfield a 13-12 lead after one quarter.

“You have to give Waynesfield credit,” Rangers varsity coach Tim Hegemier said. “They had eight three’s and they shot the ball well. We left them open in the corner and they drained it. It wasn’t the Patton girl who was doing it but the other girls.”

Turnovers plagued the Tigers throughout the second quarter as they committed eight turnovers and New Knoxville capitalized on five of them but they still couldn’t pull away as they trailed 20-16 with 3:12 left. The Rangers capitalized on the final three turnovers and went on an 8-0 run to grab a 24-20 lead with a minute left. Patton hit two free throws with 56 seconds left, but Tiana Heidt scored on a layup for the Rangers to make the score 26-22 at halftime.

“I wasn’t real pleased with our offense in the first half,” Hegemier said. “I think we struggled a little bit and it took us a while to get into the flow. Once we started hitting some shots they had to come out and play us man.”

“The thing about New Knoxville is if you turn the ball over they will usually make you pay,” Patton said. “They did a good job of capitalizing on our turnovers the whole game.”

New Knoxville continued to play strong in the third quarter as they scored two free throws from Haley Dillon and a jumper from Heidt to increase their lead to 30-22 with 7:13 left.

Following a free throw from Rebecca Stephens, Dillon hit a basket and Haley Horstman nailed a layup with 6:38 left for a 34-23 lead. With the score 36-27 and 5:17 left Horstman nailed two consecutive bombs for a 42-29 lead with 2:58 left. Despite that the Rangers couldn’t pull away from the Tigers as they only led 46-37 after three quarters.

“Their outside shooting really hurt us in the third quarter,” Patton said. “Dillon hit three or four shots and that hurt us. I give them a lot of credit because they played well, but I also give my kids credit because we are young and we are still learning a lot of things about the game.”

The Rangers got the inside game going in the fourth quarter as Horstman and Lehman traded layups to give the Rangers a 61-53 victory.

Three players for each team scored in double figures. Horstman led the Rangers with 26 points followed by Paige Lehman with 16 and Dillon with 10 points.

For the Tigers Kaylee Patton led with 21 points followed by Lidia Turner with 13 points and Ivy Horn with 12 points.

In the JV game Waynesfield manufactured a 37-33 victory.

Waynesfield (4-4) travels to Upper Scioto Valley on Thursday, while New Knoxville (6-2) travels to New Bremen on Thursday for a MAC contest.